Screwing into metal lathe - plaster but the plaster is bad

[soparklion11]

My hand rail is secured to the plaster on the edge of my staircase at two points; As the staircase rises from floor 1 to floor 2, the metal railing screws into the ceiling of the first floor. The ceiling is plaster on metal lathe. At site one, the plaster where the old screw entered the plaster is degraded but the lathe is intact. At the other site, the plaster is degraded and the lathe is a damaged mess.

How would you go about fixing this? I plan to insert a block of wood where the lathe is degraded. Is there another way to handle the screw that goes into the metal lathe? Can I replace the plaster with something that will allow it to anchor? I think that drywall compound isn't strong enough to anchor the railing; the plaster breaking is how I got into this situation.

 

[bud16415]

Most of the time metal lath was put over some kind of a wooden backer or a fiberboard. The lath itself nor the plaster would support a railing.



I would take a tool like an ice pick and explore what is behind the lath to see if there is any chance it would support some screws.



The lath and plaster build up is like close to .62-.75”. What I have done is carefully cut away the plaster enough that I can fit in a .50” piece of plywood long enough to span some structure and screw it in place. then fill the rest with joint compound to get it back to flush and match the plaster texture. Now you have plywood where you need it for the screws.